Asparagus In France

Asparagus is grown much more abundantly and to a much larger size in

France than in England. The country is half covered with it in some

places near Paris; farmers grow it abundantly, cottagers grow it, and

everybody eats it. Near Paris it is chiefly grown for market in the

valley of Montmorency and at Argenteuil, and it is cultivated

extensively for market in many other places. About Argenteuil several

thousand persons are employed in the culture of asparagus.



It is grown to a large extent among the grape-vines as well as alone.

The vine under field culture is cut down to near the old stool every

year, and allowed to make a few growths which are tied erect to a stake.

One plant is put in each open spot, and given every chance of forming a

large specimen, and this it generally does. The growing of asparagus

among the vines is a very usual mode, and a vast space is thus covered

with it about here.



It is also grown in other and special ways. Perhaps the simplest and

most worthy of adoption is to grow it in shallow trenches. These are

usually about four feet apart. The soil generally is a rather stiff

sandy loam with calcareous matter in some parts, but the soil has not

all to do with the peculiar excellence of the vegetable. It is the

careful attention to the wants of the plant which produce such good

results. Here, for instance, is a young plantation planted in March; and

from the little ridges of soil between the trenches have just been dug a

crop of small early potatoes. In England the asparagus would be left to

the free action of the breeze, but the French cultivators never leave a

young plant of asparagus to the wind's mercy while they can find a stake

of oak about a yard long.



When staking these young plants they do not insert the support close to

the bottom, as we are too apt to do in other instances, but a little

distance off, so as to avoid the possibility of injuring the root; each

stake leans over its plant at an angle of forty-five degrees, and when

the shoots are big enough to touch it, or to be caught by the wind, they

are tied to the stake. The ground in which this system is pursued being

entirely devoted to asparagus, the stools are placed very much closer

together than they are among the vines--say, at a distance of about a

yard apart. The little trenches are about a foot wide and eight inches

deep.



The best asparagus in France is grown at Argenteuil and by one system

mainly. The plants--one-year seedlings (never older)--are planted in

shallow trenches seven or eight inches deep, the plants a little more

than one yard apart and the lines four feet apart. No manure is given at

planting; no trenching or any preparation of the ground, beyond digging

the shallow trench, takes place. In subsequent years a little manure is

given over the roots in autumn; the soil, thrown out of the trenches and

forming a ridge between them, is planted with a light crop in spring. In

all subsequent years the earth is placed over the crowns in spring and

removed in autumn.



Under this system good results are obtained in various soils, the only

difference being that on cold clay soils the planting is not quite so

deep. Every winter the growers notice the state of the young roots, and

any spot in which one has perished they mark with a stick, to replace

the plant the following March. Early every spring they pile up a little

heap of fine earth over each crown. When the plantation arrives at its

third year they increase the size of the mound, or, in other words, a

heap of finely pulverized earth is placed over the stool, from which

some, but not much, asparagus is cut the same year, taking care to leave

the weak plants and those which have replaced others untouched for

another year.



The process of gathering is interesting to the stranger. Asparagus

knives of various forms are described in both French and English books,

but one is confidently told by the growers that they are only fitted for

amateurs who do not care to soil their fingers. The cultivators here

never use a knife, the work being done with the hands. Gatherings are

made every second day about the end of April, but in May when the growth

is more active the stools are gathered from every day.



The French mode of cultivating asparagus differs from the English

principally in giving each plant abundant room to develop into a large

healthy specimen, in paying thoughtful attention to the plants at all

times, and in planting in trenches instead of a raised bed. They do not,

as is done in England, go to great expense in forming a mass of the

richest soil far beneath the roots, but rather give it at the surface,

and only when the roots have begun to grow strongly.--W. ROBINSON, in

"Parks and Gardens of Paris."